Hacker
by Azulsky
Summary: Sam, like all good students, knew where to go for information. He knew libraries like the inside of a 1967 Chevy Impala, and the Internet like the parts of a Model 94 Winchester Rifle. Sam hacks.


A/N: We all know about the hacker in the UCLA database, right? Well if you don't, just google search "hacker" and "UCLA" and you'll get a bunch of articles about it.

No warnings, no parings. I hope you enjoy, because I fiddled around with the style of this one, so it's a bit different.

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Sam, like all good students, knew where to go for information. He knew libraries like the inside of a 1967 Chevy Impala, and the Internet like the parts of a Model 94 Winchester Rifle. From a young age he was taught to always be prepared, so when his older brother, Dean, stumbled into Sam's house at three thirty in the morning, Sam palmed Dean's wallet during a little scuffle, and checked the few names on the false IDs in it. 

A few days earlier, because he was bored, and mostly because he wanted to see if he still could do it, Sam hacked into three databases from his laptop while on campus. He'll never tell anyone that he has always loved being able to get through the defenses of some of the most sophisticated companies of the world, and that he misses it. So when Dean came barreling in his life once again, Sam took it as an opportunity to search out the fraud checks on the names in Dean's wallet, make sure Dean wasn't being traced.

One name was of a graduate student at UCLA, Sam found his way to the university's personal database. He was hunched over his computer, squinting at the screen, throwing his gaze around the room, making sure Jess had not come back and that Dean was still outside rummaging through the trunk of his car. There was a mistake in the code, the numbers were off; there was no way it could be that easy. For a few moments Sam only stared at the coding, until finally, with the stroke of a few well placed keys, Sam pulled up lists of names of every student, applicant, and faculty member who had been or was still going to UCLA. It did not take long to find the graduate student amongst the names. Sam would have laughed.

It was two weeks until he went back to the site. This time, instead of checking names, he was taking them. Dean felt it was completely acceptable using aliases of aging rock stars instead of his name while on the job, didn't think it would get noticed, even though he had been caught in the lie many times. Telling a fifty year old man your name is Nick Mason isn't a wise thing to do if he's the one letting you into the morgue, and he's a fan of psychedelic rock.

Each passing month Sam was on the road with Dean, he kept feeding his older brother more and more unknown names. Dean would roll his eyes at Sam but usually turned around and used them. It was only when he was teasing Sam he'd test the waters with a name like Syd Barrett, or even once using Jimmy Page when Sam was being really ornery.

Dean asked once where all the names were coming from, why there was a steady supply of them. It was not often they were gifted with an overabundance of social security numbers to throw around. Sam shrugged and turned the screen over toward his brother; he didn't say a word. Dean whistled and said something about a school rivalry and that was the end of it.

Sam knows he should not keep revisiting the weakness in the code, knows that one day they are going to find him in the middle of the act, and he will eventually have to toss the computer away, get a new IP address. He's always used fixed IP's, which makes it harder to track movement since the address doesn't rotate with the location. The bad thing about it, though, is they'll know it is one computer doing all the work.

Sam stops visiting the database when his computer is shredded in a car crash about a year after Dean wrestled him for a beer at Stanford. He doesn't call the crash an accident; Sam knows there are plans in store for his future.

At the hospital, Sam almost listed Dean as Lemmy Kilmister, but John, for once, used their real names.

One early December morning, Dean rouses Sam with a toss of a newspaper while chuckling, welcoming him to the realm of criminal masterminding. Now maybe he won't be so sore about not being listed as an accomplice to Dean by the FBI.

Dean didn't even get an article in every major newspaper throughout the United States.


End file.
